I was recently at the Mori Museum in Tokyo and went to the Ai Wei Wei’s exhibition. I read his quote “powerful only because someone thinks it’s powerful and invests value in the object.” At that point all I could feel was heartaches…. and I almost wanted to exclaim “NO!!!!” I must admit some of his work is pretty interesting but I question the needs to “destroy in order to create.” I understood his points because I am an intellectual that do not need provoking images for me to know or learn about any issues of the world. I know he has a subject, a propaganda that he wants to convey but must he dropped that urn… the subject here is the urn but in view of the beauty of most of the Chinese Ancient precious remains, I can’t help but say, please preserve them. One man act of dropping an ancient urns only says one thing to me. If there are more like minded people like Ai, then what is to become of the beauty that was left behind by our ancestors.

Dropping the urn was a frighteningly powerful action he has done, to his credit he raised the issue and awareness that such action should not be tolerated and that we must stop this kind of act”

Its such a heavy subject. I like his boldness and I feel that he has make a valid point on how we are often obsessed with our own judgement and believes system but I did not like the idea of detroying the urn at all.

Thanks a lot for your comment. I very much sympathize with your passion for preserving the best of what we have. You’ve touched on many things that I think could help explain the current dilemma for Chinese (vernacular) architecture. I completely agree with your feeling that many of us tend to harbor a narrow-minded and unhealthy bitterness towards other people’s “success”, whatever form that might take. And the fact that many prefer a gaudy (lousy and horrifying!) “western style” for their new properties also has to do with the same ignorance about the true value of Chinese (vernacular) architecture.

I once read about a nice and smart observation, which states that the reason we have so many new projects built up in “West-European” or “American” style (as if there were such things in the first place!) is that too many diplomats and government officials have had too much chance to travel to these places and see buildings in a style – any “style”, as long as it is different – they think far more superior than the traditional Chinese; what we don’t have much at present is fake (and lousy of course) Islamic architecture in China. Once these people have more opportunities to see the real thing that’s sure to catch their fancy, we’ll see “Islamic” buildings all over China. – Unfortunately I think this is quite a valid conclusion; can you believe that?! Not that I have anything against Islamic architecture, or any “western” style architecture for that matter, just that as far as new buildings and new “styles” go in China, we never seem to fail to produce the worst copies out of the best models.

I also agree that we have been deprived of a whole generation – more than that perhaps – of scholars and educators on virtually every aspect of the Chinese tradition that’s worthy of our attention and preservation. And we have been suffering from it. But I think what’s even more devastating than our ignorance is that we are ignorant of our ignorance and we’re bloody proud of it!

I wish I could share your optimistic view on the liberating and unifying power of beauty. In many situations however, this is unfortunately such a vague and ambiguous word. We are witnessing all the displacement and destruction of traditional Chinese vernacular architecture exactly, or at least partially, because we have such different views on what is beautiful (granted money and profit almost always come in to play a bigger role). The two of us, for instance, see only the most blatant ugliness in those “beautiful”, “western-style” buildings that many others simply cannot have enough of.

Strangely though, as hopeless and desperate as I sometimes see the situation in China, I still have a stubborn belief that that only means we have more work to do. – You might ask, to what end? I’m not quite sure; just that there might be, just might, a minute chance to change the scene a bit, if we actually do something, as there surely cannot be any hope if we simply give up. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not ready to give up on the “beggars” and “farmers” that you’ve criticized so bitterly. After all, that’s where most of us come and have to start from.

I hope you’re enjoying your studies, and wish you the very best for everything. Thanks again!

During WW2, Paris was under the occupancy of Nazi, Hitler had ordered to bomb the entire city of Paris, yet the German General who was in charge of Paris, was so much in love with the city of Paris, he couldn’t bear his heart to do so, so he refused to obey such order. Why? Because he understood and cared for beauty, despite the fact that these countries were at war and they were enemies.

Beauty is probably the only thing that can unite people together… and what has gone so wrong with Chinese these days? We Chinese can no longer blame the fault on Japanese, the western powers, now it’s our own problem.

I guess, Chinese people have been too poor for too long, and suddenly they don’t know what to do with their newly gotten wealth.

“Bourgeois” means not only a certain level of income, but also means a certain level of sophistication, education and background. So, these new “elites” from China are not qualified to call themselves “Bourgeois”. Don’t forget, the cultural revolution had destroyed the entire generation of scholars, artists, the affluent, we have literally lost a generation of educators, and the middle class in China has always been relatively small in number in the social pyramid comparing with the ones in the west, and the working class has always been massive in comparison also. Despite the abundance of Chinese architectural heritage, when it comes to destruction, it takes much lesser time than we think.

True, education is the key. The new privileged in China these days are the offsprings of the beggars and farmers when you look carefully into the recent history of China. They don’t have the appreciation for beauty in their blood to start with, so “educate the policy makers” is a good try, but I’d doubt it would change a thing.

As you have mentioned, the government gathered the public to demolish and dismantle the ancient architectures in Beijing in 1950’s, the similarity of such phenomenon had occurred in France after the French Revolution, yet the French had a very different mentality than the Chinese. The French had taken and popularized the luxury from the Bourgeois to share with the public, Chinese always feel bitterness, “if I don’t have it, neither could you have it”. For being within the more financially capable group, they just don’t have a sense of responsibility to preserve the beauty, our cultural heritage.

It’s just so ridiculous to see these new western style residential buildings rising up quickly on the horizon in China. Chinese are desperately pasting what they believe symbolize “luxury” and “beauty” onto the landscape. Don’t they see the absurdity and awkwardness in it??? No matter how wealthy we are becoming, we are nothing more than a bunch of culturally confused, no-self-esteem, sorry people.

I’m a young visual art student, and always feel I’m responsible to make a difference in this issue, this is definitely an uphill battle. We might not win by the end, but I will never shift my own ideology to conform with theirs as long as I live, so neither would they win me over to join “them”.

Thank you for your message and questions. Those are very good questions. Unfortunately I’m not familiar enough with Kengo Kuma’s work to offer any insightful comment on the Bamboo house that he built at the Commune by the Great Wall (please share your knowledge of him and his work, if you don’t mind. Many thanks in advance!); I’m trying to be careful about making statements about a building I’ve never personally experienced. But from what little information I’ve gathered reading online so far, I would say that I respect his respect for the historic and physical features of the locality/site; I think that the kind of sensibility he’s shown in his design to the specificity of the site is very important whenever we think/talk about a work of architecture, as it is always located/situated in a specific location with a set of specific conditions, to which an architect cannot/should not just turn a blind eye.

Kengo Kuma seems to have created a “modern”, or “contemporary” – whatever you call it – house, both in its appearance and its spirit, which is also a highly relevant and important thing to remember, in discussing the future of Chinese vernacular architecture. The idea that we can, or should, somehow, magically “return” to a past of a better built environment, with its better-designed/crafted architecture, maintaining a better balance with nature, simply won’t work for me. What’s gone is gone; what’s done cannot be undone. We might still be figuring out what we can do about the future of Chinese vernacular architecture, but we certainly can not allow the practice of building “fake antiques” continue (Just to quickly clarify: here I’m not referring or alluding to Kengo Kuma’s work at all; simply pointing out a practice currently prevalent in China). We can’t! We live in a different world (a so-called modern world, whether that’s always a “better” thing, is another question); we need to build houses for this world, this life, this lifestyle, this generation.

But that’s not to say we have to always build something loudly jarring with what’s already there, whether stylistically, visually, or in any other way. I cannot think of any reason why an architect/designer would choose not to work WITH the (pre-)existing conditions other than his/her total incompetency. Again, I respect anyone who respects the specificity of the site and tries to integrate their work into the environment in such a way that it simply “fits” there.

I don’t know if I’ll say that Kuma’s house is the way forward for Chinese vernacular architecture. For one thing, his client was building a very high-end luxury hotel complex for the service of a very selected few (btw, the emerging Chinese “elites” are very proud and loud claiming their status as the social “elites”. According to the official website of the hotel, it costs RMB 24, 883 yuan, which equals about USD 3, 440/ night to stay at this house). It would take eh, forever if ever? for any ordinary Chinese man or woman, living in the country, to have that kind of space tailor-built for them.

One last thing I would add, I would always prefer any effort to house a homeless family over any creation of any art or architecture.

I am doing a dissertation on the traditional identity of dwellings in particular, I am sorry to hear that the people who run the country are not interested in the history and beauty of traditional Chinese Architecture, what do you think about new developments done by new Architects such as Kengo Kuma and the Bamboo House near the Great Wall of China in Beijing, do you think that’s respecting the traditional aspects of Chinese architecture, do you think this is the way forward for chinese dwellings?